The surface of the lake was serene, like a pane of glass lying flat on the ground. It was so still that the mountains behind the lake, framed by intense red sunbeams from from the setting sun, reflected in it perfectly.  Brinna threw a stone across the water, counting the amount of times the rock skipped along the surface under her breath.

"Nine, I think," she said proudly.

"Pretty good," I admitted. I couldn't even make it past three. I didn't practice every time we walked past a body of water like she did, though. I watched the ripples from the stones break the mountains into pieces, small shimmering flashes of light dancing on the surface. "Gonna be dark soon." I stood up from the grass and began to unlace my boots.

"That eager to take a dip?" she asked, raising her eyebrows. "I thought we were just making an excuse to get out of the house."

She was partially right. Her father had been pestering me an extra amount lately, asking me what my plans were now that I was becoming a man. He kept asking questions like if I was going to travel the region, or work in a pub or a shop, or do nothing with my life that my father had so graciously given me. I understood his frustration. Reluctantly, he was my ward when the rot took my father. There wasn't really space for me in the small house that he shared with Brinna and me. It had been a couple of cramped years.

I understood, but I still didn't like feeling like I was a burden. I tried to carry my own. I hunted for myself, provided for myself, went into town to earn money for myself. I just needed a place to rest my head since my father's place burned down.

I was going to be a man soon. Eighteen. It was customary in the region to take on a trade at the age of eighteen and find an apprenticeship. Many left home to find greener pastures in other regions. Our region, Gradia, was the poorest and most remote. I didn't blame them.

My father was a hunter. It was how he contracted the rot. An infected wolf bit his hand while he was out on a hunt, and when he returned and the wound began to heal, a dark red stain began to spread along his arm and soon to the rest of his body. The rot affected everyone differently—some lasted weeks, some lasted years. My father lasted eight months. Its spread began to slow once it reached his shoulders and chest. It took him all the same.

I stripped out of my shirt and pants, tossing them carelessly in a pile near my boots. I started down the hill towards the water's edge, Brinna laughing behind me.

"Cold?" she teased.

"About to be colder!" I dove into the water, the temperature change hitting me hard. It was getting warmer day by day, but the chill of the night still kept the lake water cold. It was best to dive in all at once. It got you used to it faster. I kind of liked the shock of the chilled water, like being thrust into a new ecosystem all of a sudden. And it only took your body a few seconds to adapt to it. "Yeah, it's cold," I confirmed when I surfaced, wiping the water from my eyes with the back of my arm.

Brinna laid back on the grass, crossing her arms behind her head. "I think I'm good out here."

I contemplated scooping up some water in my hands and throwing it at her, but I thought better of it. She looked so relaxed. Didn't want to ruin the moment. I kicked off of the lakebed and spread my arms out beside me so I could float and watch the sky slowly darken above me. I slowly kicked my legs.

The sky was vast above us, the sun descending behind the mountains turning the clouds a fiery red. It was still, the wind nonexistent. Night birds were beginning to call from the forest around the lake, the crickets beginning to warm up for the upcoming symphony.

There was a splash and I gasped, cold water splashing over my face. I corrected myself, bringing my feet beneath me. Brinna was closing in, her eyes full of mischief. "I'm gonna shove you back in that airship you crash landed here in."

"Hey, not funny!" I pushed myself backwards in the water, kicking my feet hard. She might have been better at skipping stones than me, but I was a much stronger swimmer. I made distance between us easily.

She stopped chasing me and disappeared beneath the surface for a few moments. When she emerged again her auburn hair was stained dark by the lake and plastered to her face. She wiped it away with her hand with a little trouble while trying to keep her head above water. "Wish dad wouldn't freak if I cut my hair. It's always in the way."

"Just do it," I said, swimming closer and circling around her. She wouldn't catch me. I had a feeling she had lost interest in the chase already. "I'll cut it short for you."

"Nah. My face isn't feminine enough. People will think I'm more of a tomboy than I am."

"What's wrong with that?" I asked, gliding past her. "That doesn't matter."

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"Sometimes, it's nice to feel like a pretty girl," she said with a stupid grin in on her face.

"That happens to you?" I teased, swimming away from her when she tried to grab a toe in revenge. "I jest."

"Uh huh." With a little trouble she managed to spread out in the water and float on the surface like I had done earlier before I was so rudely interrupted. 

I joined her. The sky had darkened a small amount. The stars were beginning to appear in the sky one-by-one. There was a chill in the air now that the heat from the sun had mostly dissipated. In half an hour the water would be warmer than the air. I wondered if we would still be out here, floating like this. It wouldn't be the first time. Brinna and I had spent many, many nights swimming in this lake. It was one of the main fixtures of our childhood, one that I would have wanted to carry into adulthood if I didn't plan on leaving the region.

"You think it's still down there?" Brinna asked.

"What?"

"The airship!"

"Do you think I went down there and flew it out in the night? Or that anyone in this backwater village did?"  I asked, my tone mocking.

"Well Tomas' parents said they wanted to strip it for parts. They said they had diving suits and everything. They were getting ready to pick it clean!"

The image of Tomas' parents, Ivory and Clay, prying pieces of the ship off of its frame on the bottom of the lake in their little diving suits, made me smile. It was so outside the realm of possibility it was almost hilarious. They were lazy. It was a frequent topic of conversation in town. 

It did make me think thought. What was the state of it? Were there still bodies strapped into the seats? Was my mother in there? Had everything rusted all to hell or was the sturdier material used by the wealthier regions holding up well? We didn't even had skyships out here. We rode horses, or walked. You could hitch a ride in a wagon owned by a merchant if you were lucky and could pay.

My real father had died soon after the crash. Volter, my adopted father, and the only father I ever really knew, was fishing in the lake when the skyship crashed into it. He watched the escape pod land a few miles away in the woods and followed the beacon it sent into the sky. My real father was hurt. I was told he lasted a couple of days before passing on. I was in his arms when they found us.

Ever since then, Volter was my father. Until he got bitten by the infected wolf and wasted away in front of my eyes. Until the rot took his mind and he tried to burn the house down with me inside of it. Until I was the one to put him down. It was better from me than from anyone else. A release for the both of us. His spiral had been hard on me.

"I'd like to own a skyship some day," Brinna said, kicking her feet. "Imagine how cool that would be? Or how amazing would it be to be a skyship mechanic? I wish I could try for something like that."

"Why can't you?" I asked.

"When's the last time you heard of a female skyship mechanic?"

"I don't even know any male skyship mechanics." I knew she didn't either. I also knew she wasn't wrong. This world was hard on women. Especially given their proclivities for the supernatural. And their resistance to the rot. And it was all bets off during a Quickening event. There hadn't been a Quickening in decades, but violence against women skyrocketed during those times.

It didn't help that the rot shortened the tempers of the men who got it and turned them abusive, their aggression boiling over. Calm, even-tempered men who wouldn't hurt a fly turned into wife beaters three months into the rot. I'd seen it happen myself.

Volter had put his hands on me while he was suffering from the rot. I was only sixteen, but I was big for my age, and broad. Strong. Volter regretted it immediately after I was standing over him with blood dripping down my knuckles. That was the first and the last time. It wasn't him, but he still wasn't going to get away with it. It didn't happen again, but Volter still got worse from there. He just directed his ire elsewhere.

"You're still taking me with you, right?" she asked. Brinna was part of the reason I hadn't left yet. I told her I'd wait until she was ready. She told me we'd leave in a month. That was two weeks ago.

"If you're not going to make me wait again. I can't keep pushing my plans back for you."

"I'm ready," she said. She grabbed my wrist and squeezed it. I turned my head to the side and saw her eyes were hard and serious.

"Two more weeks?" I asked.

"Two more weeks. That's it. No more, no less. I have quite a bit of gold saved up. I know you do too. Let's work extra hard the next two weeks. Get supplies. Get the hell out of Gradia."

"You mean it?"

"Yeah. I wanna ride that airship. Maybe, just maybe, find a garage owned by someone that isn't a sexist pig and con him into letting me work for him. I could always cut my hair short and pretend to be a boy."

"I don't think that's gonna work... You've, uh," I motioned at her chest. "Changed a little."  Brinna was a late bloomer, it was a constant joke of ours. She had been pretty flat-chested until just recently. Male attention had also been nonexistent until recently. Brinna wasn't exactly fond of the newfound attention. When we were kids she'd often be mistaken for a boy when she tied her hair up or hid it under a hat. She kind of like that. Girls were an easier target.

"Yeah, I'm busty now." She laughed. "Late to grow, just like my mom."

I was surprised Brinna mentioned her mom. She wasn't too fond of her. She'd skipped town with a merchant she'd been having an affair with when she was seven, leaving her and her father in the lurch. Maybe the breasts were making her more mature. I smiled at my own private joke and she shot me a dirty look.

"Don't be a perv."

"With you? I could never." Brinna was like my sister. I was like an overprotective older brother. When you were a girl out in the boonies, you needed one. Or a knife you knew how to use. Luckily she had both.

"What do you—" she began, but her words were cut off by the swell of a siren coming from the village in the distance. A look of confusion clouded her face, then fear. "Oh my god."

Something shifted in the air. I'm not sure how I would describe it. The pit of my stomach dropped like I was falling from a great height.

We looked at each other, our eyes wide, our breath catching in our throats. That sound was something we'd never heard, but we knew immediately what it was, and what it signaled.

The Damsel in the region had been killed. Shit was about to hit the fan.